cover image The Biographer

The Biographer

Virginia Duigan, . . Vintage Australia, $16.95 (323pp) ISBN 978-1-74166-715-8

In this searingly honest novel from Australian author Duigan (Days Like These ), Greer Gordon, who abandoned her husband for celebrated Czech painter Mischa Svoboda after meeting Mischa at a Melbourne art gallery, must re-examine that choice 25 years later, prompted by the arrival of Tony Corbino, a young L.A. art critic who's working on Mischa's biography, at the Tuscan art colony where Mischa and Greer (aka Gigi Svoboda) now reside. Since Tony has unearthed an explosive secret about Greer, his dogged interviews leave her terrified. Rereading the diary she kept during her whirlwind romance with Mischa, Greer worries that Tony will confront her. But when the truth comes out, Greer encounters insights she doesn't anticipate, brilliantly expressed in lyrical prose. The wife of film director Bruce Beresford, Duigan explores the boundaries that should and shouldn't be crossed in biography as Greer realizes she can't rewrite or delete the past. (Jan.)